House Sends Contested Pay Raise Bill to Keating

Marie Price The Journal Record, THE JOURNAL RECORD

A state-employee pay hike bill that one state House member called
a "disgusting, downright shame" for tying the $2,000 salary increase
to sizable boosts in judicial pay went to Gov. Frank Keating
Thursday by a vote of 91-4 after its conference report was adopted
by a close 52-40.

Rep. Mike Mass, D-Hartshorne, said that Senate Bill 959 stalled
in the Senate for about a month while Senate President Pro Tempore
Stratton Taylor, D-Claremore, developed a way to give Oklahoma
judges and justices pay raises, some as high as $16,000.

Mass said that a state-employed licensed practical nurse who
makes $18,000 in gross pay may bring home $1,000 per month or less.
He traced a litany of routine monthly financial needs for a single
parent, which he said could top well over $1,200 even with
conservative estimates of costs for rent, food, utilities and the
like.

More than 5,000 state employees earn salaries below the poverty
level, he said.

"This is not bad -- it's an atrocity," he said.

Mass said it is inequitable to give state employees a pay hike of
only $2,000 when their health insurance premiums are scheduled for a
substantial increase.

"It's a disgusting, downright shame," he said of the bill.

Rep. Charles Gray, D-Oklahoma City, whose wife is a district
judge, said the judiciary does not need a pay increase. He pointed
out that some district judges make $85,511 per year while some state-
employee secretaries earn as little as $13,000.

Gray, who had instructions on the clerk's desk to return the
measure to conference and remove the judicial increases, said that
if the judges want pay raises, they can be done separately.

"We shouldn't do this on the backs of state employees," he said.

Rep. Bill Paulk, D-Oklahoma City, termed the measure "disgusting
and devious" because it tied the worthy to the unworthy and the poor
to the financially well-off.

Print this page

While we understand printed pages are helpful to our users, this limitation is necessary
to help protect our publishers' copyrighted material and prevent its unlawful distribution.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.